So I REALLY regret not being around for this thread when it started. So many comments and I only got through reading the first two pages. I will say this much because I have often heard people refer/complain about JMS writing note on cards. When I was in film school we were taught to map out a screenplay on cards. Write all of the scenes/action out on 3"x5" cards then order them the way we wanted it to unfold. It was a way to get everything you wanted to happen in order before you started writing dialogue. It was also a visual representation of the structure that you could move around easily when you had it laid out in front of you. I don't even know how to comment on everything else I've read. I would have to quote so many things from other posts. I'm not talking about anything I find really bad or wrong, just discussion. Oh well I may have to start my own Season 5 stuff when I get there again.

I probably said this earlier in the thread, but I am too lazy to go look for it. I like season 5. I first started watching Babylon 5 during season 5, so I knew nothing of the who's better debates....Sheridan/Sinclair or Ivanova/Lochley and all the other reasons why some fans who had seen the previous seasons already were so down on season 5. I really liked it. I got hooked on the first episode that I saw. To me it was new, and different, and it really drew me in. I really enjoyed it, and then began looking for the other seasons on VHS tape (didn't have DVD at the time.....even if it existed....lol ). When I found them it didn't really bother me that season 5 was so "different" from the other seasons. I liked the show too much to let that bother me.

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Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

WOW! That seems like it would have been an interesting way to come into the B5 Universe. I really started in Season Two. I saw a couple of bits and pieces of Season One, but I didn't really devote the time to being all in with the show until Season Two. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to start in Season Five just from the arc standpoint. Maybe I should find someone to show the show to and start with Crusade or the movies. That would be an interesting take.

In contrast, I've never even seen all of S5. I missed portions or the entirety of several of the telepath-focused eps, and I've also never seen "Day of the Dead." So in some ways I have missed bits of the season that are the most commonly disliked on the internet. (And while I have often started re-watches with new people, I've never gotten all the way through with everyone! I'm hoping to break that pattern soon with my sweetheart, but we have only just gotten past the mid-point, halfway through S3.)

I generally make allowances for the season's rockiness on terms of the way S4 had to get wrapped up so fast. There are other problems with S5, but most of those have their roots in the show's bigger problems.

And say what you like about S5 (or the show's back half as a whole!), it does end really well. Once the focus gets back on the Centauri it's pretty top-quality right through to the end. And then, well... "Sleeping in Light" is what it is.

GREAT GOOGLEEE MOOGLEEE ! ! ! ! ! How is that possible?! I can understand if you were saving them, but how did curiosity not inspire you to watch them?! Are you an IN-completest? WOW! Of course I don't know when you saw the show the first time. Maybe you only started watching it in recent years. Maybe this only seems strange to me because I started in 1994.

Hah, sorry, I thought I'd included my explanation, which is simple enough. I first saw the show back in the VHS days, and my friends who had recorded the show had had some trouble taping it! I think they'd accidentally recorded over a few episodes and only had partials of others. That was senior year of high school for me.

Then they started issuing the DVDs. I remember being so excited when Season 1 first came out. (I hadn't ever seen all of S1 until that point, either. I mean, I'd seen to the end of the show, but I hadn't seen "Mind War"! That's how patchy it has been for me.) But it took time for them to release them, and by the time they got around to Season 5, my interest in the show had waned. It started to seem dated, with threats and dangers that seemed very post-Cold War but pre-9/11. Moreover it seemed curiously straightforward about some things (Sheridan's basic decency and heroism, the Rangers = Good, etc.), when the world seemed quite complicated.

Moreover I'd moved on to other shows -- also starting with "B", curiously: Battlestar Galactica and Buffy. B5 shall forever be my first love, but Buffy replaced it in my heart as my soulmate show. I bought the complete set of Buffy, but I never got around to buying B5's fifth season.

But now B5 seems more relevant than it has in years, and besides, my sweetheart has already seen both BSG and Buffy, so I'm returning to my roots. And at some point I'll need to figure out a way to watch season 5.